by Peter David
“I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
Kalinda held up the device that she had between her fingers. “I’ve been thinking about the fact that I kept this to myself, and I’ve come to the conclusion that that might not have been the wisest of courses. I thought I would share it with you.”
“What are you sharing? I don’t understand. What’s that thing you’re holding?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. I know what that is. That’s a tracking beacon.”
“Yes, it is.”
“What are you doing with a tracking beacon?”
“Xyon left it here. It was attached to the underside of the table.”
“What?” She grabbed it out of Kalinda’s hand. “How do you know?”
“He left it here when he came to visit me. I am sure this was how the ships were able to track us despite the fact that we were cloaked.”
“That little bastard.” She stared at Kalinda. “How long have you known about this?”
“For a while.”
“For a while?! How could you not have told me immediately when you found this?” Without hesitation, she dropped it on the floor and brought her heel down on it, shattering it. “Why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“I needed time to think about it.”
“Think about what? This is insane. I have to tell the captain.”
“You can’t.”
Tobias had already been heading out of the room, but she turned and gaped at Kalinda. “What do you mean, I can’t?”
“Because he will think ill of Xyon if he discovers what he did.”
“Are you serious? Why should we care what he thinks of Xyon? In fact, he should think poorly of him! We were almost killed thanks to him. We lost Robin thanks to him!” She was pacing back and forth with furious energy. “And you think the best way to deal with this is to not tell Calhoun? Are you out of your mind?”
“Xyon made a mistake.”
“You think?”
“We survived,” Kalinda said calmly. “And eventually, Xyon will realize that he made that mistake and will want to try and make up for it. If the captain finds out what he did, then the chances are that he will not forgive Xyon. That would be tragic because it would drive a permanent wedge between the two of them.”
“I don’t care!”
“You should. We should care about such things, Tania. We should care if a father and his son are eventually united. They are the last two members of the Xenexian race. It would be tragic if those last two members never spoke to each other again.”
“He shouldn’t be spoken to. He should be fired out of a torpedo tube.”
“You don’t believe that. You wouldn’t really want to kill him.”
“Why not? He tried to kill us!”
“As I said, he made a mistake. He may even have realized it by now.”
“Kalinda, you’re crazy,” said Tania. “And if you think I’m not going to tell Captain Calhoun, then—”
“Please.” She put a hand on Tania’s arm. “Tania, I trusted you with this information.”
“Why? Why did you feel the need to share this with me?”
“Because I love you,” said Kalinda, “and I think it’s appropriate that because I love you, I should be willing and ready to share anything with you that’s important.”
“That’s great, Kalinda, but you don’t seem to understand that . . .” Her voice trailed off. “You know, that’s the first time you ever said you love me.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You picked a hell of a time and way to do it, though.”
“I suppose I did.”
Tania rolled her eyes. “Let me see if I understand this. You want me not to tell the captain that you found a tracer that Xyon left here, and leave everyone wondering why the cloaking device failed, in order to preserve the possibility that at some point the captain and his son will reconnect.”
“That is more or less accurate, yes.”
“Fine,” she said with an aggravated sigh, but then Tania raised a single warning finger. “But I want to give you a heads-up right now. If I see Xyon again, and he’s trying some other scheme to bring us down, I will personally blow his brains out. Do you understand me?”
“That certainly seems fair. And just so you know . . .”
“Just so I know what?”
“I still talk to ghosts,” said Kalinda with a small smile. “I didn’t want you to know that because I know it bothers you. But I thought you should know. And they’ll be watching you when I’m not around. So if you do tell the captain while I’m not watching you, they will know and very likely will destroy you.”
Tania had no idea how to react to that. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Oh no,” Kalinda assured her. “I take the undead very seriously. I would never joke about something like that. They will be watching, and they will take revenge if you lie and betray me. They’re funny that way. You won’t see it coming. You’ll step into a turbolift, and it won’t actually be there. Or the holodeck will malfunction. Or something else very bad will happen. Which I would hate because, as I said, I love you. By the way, do you love me, too?”
Tania’s mouth moved for a few moments without any words coming out before she managed to say, “Yes. Absolutely.”
“That’s good to hear,” Kalinda said cheerfully.
Tania managed to nod and then backed slowly out of the room. She had no idea whether the things that Kalinda had said were serious or some twisted jape. But she also knew that she had absolutely no desire to find out.
Thallon
FA CWAN WANTS to kill something.
He knows that that is not the correct attitude to have. He is someone to whom people look as a guide for how to behave. They see him as a role model, as a solid example of what every Thallonian male should be or at least aspire to be.
But that is not how Fa Cwan sees himself. For all that other people measure themselves by his successes, Fa Cwan only sees his failures. He sees not what he is, but what he could be. The problem is that what he could be far exceeds what he is.
His mate, Grata, knows that he is frustrated. She has tried all that she can to turn him around. She has been supporting. She has been loving. She has been frustrated. She has endeavored to help him in every way imaginable, and Fa Cwan knows that even she is beginning to lose patience with him. He cannot blame her. He cannot conceive of how she is able to tolerate his presence. He is nothing but frustrated, seemingly every hour of every day. He awakens angry, he goes to sleep angry, and he is angry every hour in between.
He was not always this way. Once upon a time, he was one of the most reasonable of men. He had worried only about the welfare of others and had focused both his life and his fortune on helping others.
And now where is he? Once he was the richest of men, but now his finances are severely depleted. His business ventures have also suffered as people have begun to distrust him specifically because he has spent so much of his money on philanthropic endeavors. People reason, How can we trust him when he pays so little attention to his own needs?
Perhaps they are right. Perhaps his priorities have been severely out of whack. Focusing his attentions on others to the detriment of his own needs? What sort of sane individual does that?
It seemed for the best, he thinks, but he knows that he is simply trying to rationalize a lifetime of foolish decisions.
It has not helped him that Elia Canto has done all that he can to bring him down.
He has no idea why Canto has targeted him, but it appears to definitely be the case. Canto has been waging a political war against Cwan that he is simply not set up to fight. Lately every endeavor that Cwan undertakes is stymied by Canto and Canto’s ruling-class associates. Cwan has no idea why Canto is doing this, but it has dropped him deep into a pit of despair. The only thing he has left in this life is seeking to improve the existence of others, and in that regard he finds himself unable to function thanks to Canto’s
schemes.
“Why?” he says to himself for the hundredth time this day. Seated in his study, he glances around it with a look of despair that has become his perpetual expression these days. He is surrounded by paintings that track the history of his family line. Cwan after Cwan rendered in battle gear, knee-deep in the blood of their enemies as they battle for power on Thallon, each striving to reach the pinnacle of puissance so that they can accomplish great things.
Fa Cwan has let them down. That is a slow but grim realization to which he has come. He has been handed the name of his family to honor, and he has thoroughly mucked it up. He is not deserving of the title.
And he is the last of his family. His father had no brothers and thus far he has produced no heirs. It is not Grata’s fault, surely. She has done her best. The lack of an heir must certainly come down to yet another failure on his side of things.
He realizes that he is slowly being driven toward one inevitable conclusion. He has absolutely no business living. It is a hard conclusion to draw, but an inevitable one.
Canto is blocking all his efforts. His existence is doing nothing to perpetuate the line of Cwan. For what reason is he continuing to exist. Habit? There seems no point to that. Certainly Grata can do far better than him for a husband. If he ends his life now, she will inherit what is left of his estate. She can keep on residing in their mansion, or perhaps sell it and live quite well on the revenue the sale would generate. Certainly it would be better and fairer to her if he gave her that option.
He would arrive in the afterlife and be greeted by his predecessors. They might well scold him for all that he has failed to accomplish, but eventually he will be welcomed and be able to battle alongside them in the eternal war that awaits all Thallonians on the other side. He is well trained in the fighting skills, even if he has not had many opportunities to exercise them. He will be able to employ them in perpetuity and thus provide benefit to someone.
“It makes sense,” he mutters.
The traditional dagger of the Cwan family is mounted on the wall. He strides over to it and takes it down, admiring the glistening of the sunlight off the blade. He wonders how many people have been slain with it. A hundred? A thousand? He takes pride in his family’s bloody history.
Has it ever been used in a suicide before? He has no way of knowing. Perhaps his will be the first and last.
He wonders how to do it. Should he slice his wrists? He will then have to lie there and bleed out. When Grata finds his corpse, she will have to clean up all the blood. That does not sound especially pleasant, for either of them. Simply drive the dagger into his heart. Then, with any luck, the bleeding will be mostly internal and he will not have to worry about leaving behind a mess for his wife.
Will she understand why he has done this? He believes that she will.
He places the point of the dagger against his chest and closes his eyes, steeling himself for the thrust.
There is a knock at his door.
“Really? Now?” he mutters. Then, in a louder voice, he calls, “What?”
“Shanter is here to see you,” comes Grata’s voice. “And I have something else to discuss with you.”
With a sigh he replaces the knife onto the wall. “Come in,” he calls.
Shanter Khen enters, and there is someone with him, someone that Fa Cwan does not know. It is another Thallonian, but there is something about him that does not seem right. As unlikely as it would be, this new individual comes across as if he is an offworlder. As if he is only a visitor to Thallon rather than a resident.
Khen does not appear to be himself. He has not seen Khen for quite some time. He has heard rumors that Khen has secreted himself away somewhere, but has no idea if that is true. Supposedly, he had steeped himself in worship or something like that. It does not matter. His relationship with Khen stems from his capability as a drinking companion, and his religious leanings have never been of any interest. Now, though, there is a grin on Khen’s face that seems to border on the nearly insane. He wonders what in the world could have Khen so worked up.
“I’ll leave you to chat,” says Grata. She is smiling as well as she closes the door behind her.
Cwan looks impatiently at Khen and his associate. “So, Shanter. It has been quite some time. What brings you here? Who is your associate?”
“This,” says Khen, and then he stops speaking for a moment because his voice is trembling. He takes a deep breath to compose himself and then begins again. “This is a day that you thought would never come, Fa Cwan. A day when you shall finally triumph over your enemies.”
“I have no enemies,” Cwan replies. “At the most I have individuals who wish to make my life more difficult than it need be. Beyond that—”
“Do not lie to yourself, Cwan,” Khen tells him. “You have enemies. Most conspicuously, our ruler, Elia Canto. But that will be attended to this day.”
“Indeed. You have certainly set an ambitious agenda for the day.” He looks again at the Thallonian who has accompanied Khen. “And who might your friend be?”
“This . . .” Once again his voice trembles and he must fight to control himself. “This . . . is the Awesome.”
It is all Cwan can do not to laugh aloud. “I’m sorry?”
“This is the Awesome,” Khen repeats.
“Your god?”
“Yours too,” says the Awesome. He does not sound like a god. His voice is not vast and booming. There is nothing godly about His presence. He seems odd, but He does not appear to exist on any sort of deified realm.
“Pardon my skepticism,” says Cwan. “It is just that I have never encountered a god before. You do not fit into my preconceptions of what such a being would be like.”
“Really? And what did you think that might be?”
“I don’t know. Something godly, I suppose.”
“Indeed. Such as this, perhaps?”
The Awesome snaps His fingers, and Cwan is no longer in his study.
He is, instead, in space. He is in orbit around Thallon.
Cwan cries out in alarm, but there is no air to feed into his lungs or carry his outcry.
It is ironic that only minutes earlier he had been intending to kill himself. Now he is in the vacuum of space that will kill him simply for being there, and he is fighting for his life.
Suddenly he can breathe. He does not understand how this can be possible, but air is flooding into his body. He reaches out and there is a hard shell surrounding him.
“Magnificent, isn’t it,” says a voice next to him.
He turns and sees that the Awesome is floating next to him. The Awesome seems more amused by him than anything else. “Quite the view, isn’t it. Have you ever been off your planet’s surface?”
Cwan has no response. Instead he is simply staring in wide-eyed wonder at the creature that is before him. A creature that he instinctively understands now looks like a Thallonian not because He genuinely is one, but simply because He chooses to.
“I asked you a question,” the Awesome says.
“Yes,” Cwan manages to say. “Several times. I . . . I do not like it much.”
“Really? Why?”
“Space is not for us. It is airless and hostile and we . . . I . . .” He is running out of words. He feels as if his brain is shutting down. “I . . . I don’t . . . I . . .”
“Steady,” says the Awesome. “I require you to focus now. Can you do that?”
Cwan manages a nod.
“Look at the world below you. Do you see it?”
He nods again.
“It is your world,” the Awesome tells him. “I give it to you. I will provide you with whatever you require in order to do what is necessary. Do you believe you are up for it? Can you rise to this challenge?”
For the first time, Cwan begins to wrap his brain around precisely what the Awesome is capable of. For a moment he wonders if this is all some manner of illusion, but then quickly realizes that cannot be the case. This is happening. This is re
al. The Awesome is displaying for him just a small percentage of the abilities that He possesses and that He is—for no reason that Cwan can comprehend—offering to Cwan to utilize however he wishes.
“Yes,” Cwan whispers.
“Say it more loudly. Say it as if you mean it.”
“Yes.”
“One more time.”
“Yes!” Cwan shouts, his heart hammering away within his chest. The heart that he had only minutes earlier been prepared to stab through is now reminding him of its presence. “Yes, I mean it!!”
“That is good to hear. Look down upon the world that you will soon own, Fa Cwan. Decide whom you wish to keep alive. Decide who are your friends and your foes. I will attend to the rest.”
“Why?” Cwan knows he should not ask, but yet cannot help himself. “Why would you do this? Why would you aid me in this endeavor?”
“Because it amuses me to do so,” says the Awesome. “Because I find your race interesting. And because, honestly, I don’t have anything better to do right now.”
Space seemed to twist around him, and then Cwan was back in his study. Khen was studying him and grinning the entire time. Khen had clearly been in a state of euphoria since he’d walked in, and Cwan was starting to understand why. “Where did He take you?” says Khen.
“Space,” Cwan manages to say. “I was in space. I was hovering above our world. I . . . it was amazing. You are amazing,” he tells the Awesome. “You are amazing.”
“I know,” the Awesome assures him. “We will give you some time to process what you have seen. We will return tomorrow and begin your ascension to ruling Thallon. In the meantime, Shanter Khen here will escort me around your world and show me all that you have to offer. Enjoy the rest of your day, Fa Cwan.”
“Thank you,” Cwan says. “Thank you very—”
He is speaking to an empty room. The Awesome and Shanter Khen have vanished.
Cwan emerges from his study, looking stunned. He can scarcely process what he has just seen. Grata sees him and walks over to him. “Where did Khen and his friend go?”